Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 52

52 possible to rush re-inforcements of police or military to the rescue of attacked settlements, or even to maintain a regular system of day and night patrols. Secondly, the breakdown of communications which occurs every winter in certain regions, to the great detriment of the marooned villages which are unable either to market their produce or to get their necessities from the towns, is bound particularly to aggravate the problem of supply of agricultural produce to the urban population under the abnormal conditions caused by widespread disorders. Thirdly, the lack of direct roads and railway connections running through zones of Jewish settlement, and the consequent necessity for Jews to travel by round-about routes through Arab regions have resulted in unnecessary dislocation of traffic and in much avoidable loss of life". 70." The proposal made by the Jewish Agency provided for the construction, on the one hand, of arterial roads to be defrayed entirely by the Government, and, on the other hand, of local roads to which the Jewish settlements concerned would be prepared to make appropriate contributions. Under the first head the following four items were urged : (a) the speediest possible completion of the North Road to Haifa and, as part of this, the immediate construction of the road from Tel Mond to Hederah; (b) the construction of a loop road from the Afuleh-Nazareth road via Ginegar, Sarid, Gvat, Ramat David and Nahalal to the Haifa-Nazareth highway; (c) the building of a road from Afuleh to pass by Kfar Yeheskiel, Geva, Ein Harod, Tel Yosef and Hugim in the direction of Beisan; (d) the construction of a road from Mount Tabor School to Sejera, to provide the missing link between the Emek and Lower Galilee. All these roads, apart from shortening considerably the distance from the Jewish settlements concerned to their centres of supply and marketing, were, in addition, to obviate the necessity of Jewish traffic passing through Arab regions. Thus the first mentioned road was to link up the whole of the Sharon and Emek Hefer with Tel Aviv, on the one hand, and the railway station of Hederah on the other, freeing these regions from dependence on the Arab railway stations of Qalqilia and Tulkarm. In stressing the urgency of this item the Executive wrote : "Suffice it to say that if this road (i.e. from Tel Aviv to Haifa) were now available, the toll of death caused by the Jewish bus convoys travelling from Tel Aviv to Haifa via Tulkarm eastwards and on to Jenin would have been considerably smaller, if not entirely non-existent, and the escorts now engaged in protecting this traffic would have been free for other duties".